After Gadar 2 high, Sunny Deol is all set for his OTT debut and a slate of big banner films

The election season is upon us and even if Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Sunny Deol has remained absent from his Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat, something that has been called out by his Opposition time and time again, the 66-year-old Bollywood actor is reinvigorated after last year’s phenomenal success of his film Gadar 2, one of the biggest blockbusters of 2023.

Released on August 11 and featuring his Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001) co-star Ameesha Patel, Gadar 2 may not have impressed the critics but it pulled people to the theatres and went on to become a commercial success, grossing over Rs 687.8 crore worldwide against a production budget of Rs 60 crore, according to IMDB, online database for films. Gadar 2 became the fifth highest-grossing Indian film of 2023 beating the Rajinikanth-starrer Jailer.

The success has catapulted Deol’s near-dead film career. He has a busy schedule ahead with a slate of big movies in the pipeline, according to reports. The latest news on the grapevine is that Sunny Deol is all set to make his OTT debut soon.

HT City, the Hindustan Times magazine, reported on March 11 that Sunny Deol is in talks for OTT shows and films and, as per their sources, producers are willing to offer him big amounts for the same, too.

Deol confirmed to the newspaper that “interesting times lay ahead… I am doing a couple of films, and those will give me a benchmark of how things are going to be in 2025. All the films I am doing are big screen films. And, yes, I am also doing stuff for digital platforms. I am picking up more subjects, and there are certain things which I want to do which cannot be for the big screen as they (theatres) will not give me space for it.” Fans await his OTT debut.

Deol may not be cut out for politics, and hence he hasn’t been able to evolve his own persona to draw in popularity in that field but he has “understood”, by his own admission, that when it came to the movies, “he needs to keep experimenting to stay relevant amid the newer generation” and reach a “wider audience.” The actor also wants to expand his filmography, and not to do only one kind of stuff.

His next big theatrical release will be Lahore 1947, yet another historical film — in keeping with the current zeitgeist and the genre that helps Deol draw the masses — produced by Aamir Khan (Aamir Khan Productions) and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi. The film will see Deol back with his old co-star from all those years ago, Preity Zinta. They have worked in films like Dillagi (1999) and Yeh Raaste Hai Pyaar Ke, The Hero: Love Story of a Spy, Farz from the early 2000s.

Deol, according to reports, will also star in Border 2, set against the 1971 Indo-Pak War, alongside Ayushmann Khurrana, to be directed by Anurag Singh (of Kesari and Punjab 1984 fame).

He is also going to be seen in a movie named Safar, co-starring Salman Khan, Paresh Rawal and Madhuri Dixit Nene, which will release sometime this year. There are also rumours that Deol might be seen playing Hanuman in Nitesh Tiwari’s version of Ramayan, starring Ranbir Kapoor in the lead role.